Lying to get a date: The effect of facial physical attractiveness on the willingness to deceive prospective dating partners (original) (raw)

This research explored the extent to which people use decep-tion to initiate a date with opposite-sex prospects who varied in facial physical attractiveness. Participants reviewed profiles of prospective dates varying in facial attractiveness, described their own personal characteristics to the prospective dates (study 1), and rated their willingness to lie to make themselves appear to be more desirable to each prospect (study 2). Both men and women deceptively altered their self-presented expressivity and love attitudes to more attractive prospects (study 1), and reported being more willing to lie about their personal appearance, personality traits, income, past relation-ship outcomes, career skills and intelligence to prospective dates who were higher in facial physical attractiveness, com-pared with prospective dates who were lower in facial phys-ical attractiveness (study 2). No sex-differences in the will-ingness to use deceptive self-presentational tactics were found. A strong...